Baby slept a great deal, and just beginning to teethe, was cross and less companionable than usual. The household tasks that she took upon herself now did not last long, and the little mother did so much sewing for everyone in the cottage that there was really nothing left for Dot to do, but put on occasional buttons and tapes. She resolved to let her voice fill up the blank in her life, it was her one great gift, and she determined she would cultivate it assiduously and then--but she had not yet quite decided what difference the 'then' would make. The Red Road Country had a little plain church at the top of one of its hills, and Dot led the singing as a matter of course. Sometimes she took long solo parts in the anthems, and then the ugly barn-like place of worship seemed full of glory. Several times people had come all the way from the shore just to hear the clear, sweet, joyous voice of that one little person in the front row. She had been asked more than once to join the choir of different big churches in Sydney, but there was no train service at all on Sunday for the line, and Larrie naturally refused to have an empty house the greater part of the day just because his wife had a voice. Choir practices were on Wednesday afternoons, and Dot attended regularly now; for one thing they helped to pass the time, for another she had a genuine desire to have the singing each Sunday as good as possible, and knew her presence stimulated the other members. The Red Road Country is growing famous for its healthiness. People with land to sell in the district and the few boarding-house keepers, advertise it as 'The Sanatorium of New South Wales.' Doctors are beginning to send their patients there occasionally, instead of to the Blue Mountains, and the pure, gum-tree filtered air certainly works wonders. Mr Sullivan Wooster had been sent up for a month. He occupied a high position in the musical world of Sydney. He taught, conducted concerts, gave recitals of his own on organ and piano, and composed pieces that met with high praise in the old world. An attack of pleurisy had prostrated him recently, and he had come up to the Red Road Country for his convalescence, refusing to be sent to a more distant place. A Wednesday afternoon came a week after he had arrived. He was almost dying with the _ennui_ of the place; the abounding gum trees were beginning to prey upon his very soul. He had taken rooms at a cottage where the recommendations had been 'No children, beautiful views, and a piano.' But the daughter of the house had artistic yearnings that she longed to impart, a passion for waltzes, and a tousled fringe that Wooster was always dreading to find detachments of in his custards. The healthful Eucalypt on hill and dale comprised the view.